Archive for January 19, 2013

I enjoyed NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, a Jean Negulesco noir with John Garfield and Geraldine Fitzgerald. The heart of the film is really Walter Brennan, in grizzled sidekick mode, but in a suit and hat for once — when I mentioned the movie to Hilary Barta of Limerwrecks, he immediately cited Brennan’s contemporary garb as the film’s chief pleasure.

My main interest lay elsewhere, however. Garfield plays a con artist brought in to fleece a widow, played by Fitzgerald, who has been spotted as a likely mark by a rival gang led by George Coulouris. This once-successful crook no longer has the bankroll to finance the operation, and needs a partner. He’s also too old and ugly to seduce Fitzgerald personally, but he’s reluctant to admit this. The sight of Coulouris, as saggy, glowering and sheened with perspiration as ever, protesting his undiminished desirability to the fair sex is both moving and queasily hilarious.

In a way, Coulouris is the flipside of Brennan, since both embody the wisdom of the film’s title — you have limited time on earth to make good, and will end up like these guys if you don’t accomplish it when you have a chance. Brennan is a sweet-natured pickpocket (perhaps an unlikely character in reality), Coulouris a washed-up confidence man who will resort to kidnapping and murder to come out on top, but both are vividly seedy embodiments of failure.

Of course, Garfield falls for his target and shows signs of faltering in his criminal mission. Coulouris decides to push him aside — in this scene, Garfield enters his hotel suite to find Coulouris waiting, sprawled across a chair like an unstrung puppet. Is he trying to look sexy? To prove he’s still got it or to tease Garfield? At any rate, it’s a great pose — the 40s are a fine period for unconventional use of furniture (think Peter Lorre, sitting on desktops).

In his simultaneous arrogance and dismal hints of self-awareness (deep down he knows he’s a loser), Coulouris’s characterisation reminds me of another George, Costanza from Seinfeld.